Thanks to Brexit, We'll All Work Even Longer

Looking at this photo is as close as you'll ever get to retiring. (Photo: Huskyherz, via)

Sometimes a story is so on brand that it's worth bringing back a dormant column for. Yesterday, a former director of the Confederation of British Industry warned that you might have to work even longer before you can retire. This is thanks to Brexit, which was voted for by old people who will be dead before you can complain about working until you're wizened and  still sat at your desk.

John Cridland, who is undertaking a review of the pension age for the government, has warned that the "Brexit Factor" has made the future of pensions uncertain.

The ratio of young people working in the economy to old people sitting around watching Pointless and claiming their pension money is going to be "unpredictable", due to life expectancy, fertility and post-Brexit migration policies.

According to the Telegraph:

Just a quick reminder that old people and over voted mostly for Brexit and young people voted mostly to remain. Old people are more likely to be anti-migrant as well (although that's a prevalent attitude across age groups). So basically what this looks like is you working in an increasingly crap job until you're grey, in order to placate your long dead grandad's xenophobia.

In the here and now, meanwhile, employers are struggling to fill jobs as migrants carry out their own personal Brexits. Which is the sort of thing that might play well politically given that the "British jobs for British workers" line has been peddled by the BNP, Tories and Labour at various times. But then with Brexit taking £800 off the average wage bill of the lowest-paid workers, people might start wondering if the best way to stop foreign people taking British jobs is to make sure that all the jobs are crap.

Thankfully, of course, the Labour Party is bravely battling against this misanthropic stupidity that promises to make us all wage slaves for longer than we need to be. Just kidding, lol: they're actually capitulating to the general anti-migrant groundswell that will ruin our livelihoods in order to spite some foreigners.

Tom Watson was on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, explaining that Labour could adopt a regional immigration policy to tighten controls everywhere except London. That way, they reckon, they could keep their cosmopolitan London base happy while stemming the rising Ukip tide elsewhere. They could take a principled stance that could make them look quite smart in the long run, blaming bosses for falling wages and railing against racism.

Instead, they're trying to be quite literally all things to all people and therefore nothing to anyone.

Really glad we've taken back control from Brussels and given it to a sector of society whose prejudices can be readily weaponised by a political and capitalist class hell bent on blaming all the misery on anyone but themselves.

@SimonChilds13

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